Aflame, Afire
by Frigg Jin Appleby
Summary: It's not at all what was supposed to happen, but the imperfections only make it real.


**Story is M for a reason. It's also my first attempt at smut, took me long enough.**

**The world deserves more Clato, I think.**

* * *

><p>District 1 doesn't look promising this year. To be frank- as Clove always is- Marvel seems conceited, and Glimmer is a hopeless preening idiot. She simpers and smiles for the Capitol, and that's about as astute as she gets; using her looks, to get what she desires. It won't work in the arena. Glimmer's airs don't contain the same razor-edges as her knives.<p>

Maybe Clove's judgement is clouded, but it doesn't matter when Glimmer was the one to place the fog there in the first place. But she knows she's right when it comes to equating her with usefulness. Actually, there's nothing to equate. The most vicious way the girl has ever used a knife has been to cut an undercooked steak; her hair would be better tinder than the material she picks at the fire-starting station. The swords and spears are 'too heavy' and 'they don't make the arrows right'.

Alliances have existed between 1 and 2 for 73 years. Cadmus insisted, for the purpose of both survival and sponsors, that the truce should remain between them until and during the Games.

_For as long as it's necessary_, their mentor told them. His eyes were more on Clove than Cato during his small tirade. He didn't need to know her to tell how unimpressed she was with their temporary allies.

It's with no small measure of self-restraint that Clove refrains from burying a blade between the blonde's pretty, plucked eyebrows. The bloodshed hasn't even started yet, and she's itching for it. There's an essence the taller girl exudes that simply annoys her. Marvel and Cato don't seem to notice it; perhaps if they do, it only draws them closer to her side. Both Glimmer and Clove know what they're looking for, and they don't have a hope in Panem with the other female tributes. All 11 are too meek, too afraid, too innocent. All but Clove, and the boys have every right to be afraid of _her_.

She'd sooner plant a knife between Marvel's lips and lick the blood away than kiss him, and Cato...well. He's home, and she knows that, but she also knows he'll be the one to kill her. Enticing notions will only kill her all the sooner.

It's beyond Clove, why the walking wet dream chooses to visit the knife station. Maybe she knows running her soft, white hands down the blades pisses Clove off. She's irate when Glimmer moves a few out of place, smearing her fingertips over the sleek clean metal. Isn't it the least she can do, to piss her off in return?

"You ought to watch your step," Clove warns, in a high and haughty tone that's such a contrast to Glimmer's _purrs_.

The blonde blinks, turning to face the smaller tribute, her hand on a knife in a way some might call threatening. The prolonged intimacy of the touch only fuels Clove's fire. Knives are her forte. Glimmer's lies somewhere else, sordid and saccharine, between bedsheets.

"Excuse me?" Glimmer asks, feigning a sweet, bewildered innocence.

"Cato," she clarifies. Her hands are on the knives too, fingering the handles thoughtfully. They've never even tasted blood, she supposes. That's positively sinful, for blades of their craft, their beautiful and elegant designs. Her array back at home is nothing to scoff at, but not a single one can hold a candle to the ones laid out in front of her. Even Glimmer's smarmy touch can't detract from their allure.

District 1's mouth twitches. She doesn't quite know what the other girl is hinting at, but understands that envy might somehow be involved.

"What about him?" she sniffs. Her conquests are her conquests, and she'd rather not discuss them with a surly teenaged stranger.

"What I said. Watch your step. And your back."

"What Cato does with my back is none of your concern," Glimmer snaps, uncomfortable. Clove's anger is dimming, her amusement growing, although she wishes she'd get her damned hand off that knife.

So she shrugs, playing along, although she has an ulterior motive, and shouldn't be surprised Glimmer hasn't guessed at it yet. "Just telling you. Cato's not a nice boy. Pain is his pleasure, and you don't strike me as a physically...robust type."

"I can deal with Cato just fine, thanks," Glimmer retorts, throwing in a knowing smirk in her direction that Clove would like to carve from her face. Red would suit her, the brunette feels. So would the inability to talk.

"Just because you're fucking him won't give you sentimental value in the arena," Clove says abruptly, selecting a thin knife with an ivory handle. It's not polished to perfection, but that only gives her better grip. It splices the air with a mellow whistle, quickly engulfed by the soft foam of a dummy's neck. In three days, that dummy will be Glimmer. They already share the same level of intelligence, after all.

"And if you'd like to walk tomorrow morning, and the morning after, and the morning after _that,_ stay away from him. If you'd like to breathe without flinching-"

"You're completely unlikeable, Clove," she mutters. "When we play the Games, you'll have no value at all."

A fake arm is severed; in the next moment, a knife burrows into a foam stomach, a lethal metal parasite. Glimmer seems to get the message and flounces off to find better company. Failing, she settles for the District 4 girl. Clove feels a little triumphant. She's alone with her knives at last, and her words are bound to make the idiot even a little bit paranoid. An ounce of fear is enough to start with.

She's in between knives when an arm snakes around her torso and a hand covers her mouth. It's a waste of time, because Clove doesn't think she's the screaming type. When she bites it, she's only dragged in the shadows of a hallway, a muffled obscenity uttered in her ear. Clove is pressed against the metal wall, and only then is the appendage removed from between her teeth. Someone's warm chin presses down against her shoulder, cheek nestled against her neck.

He's very warm, her assailant; some kind of frenetic energy bleeds through his skin.

"What was that, Clove?" he breathes. Of course it's him- karmically, it's perfect.

"Just telling the bitch what she needed to know," Clove hisses. She ignores the sculpted chest mashed against her back, and wonder just when it became so hard to breath. When she was squashed against the damn wall, of course.

"Cato likes pain, doesn't he?" the boy whispers. Coming from him, the sound is harsh. He's never uttered a single soft syllable in his life. Still, Clove thinks it sounded like a confession. "Can't tell the fucking difference. Cato's messed up. You were ten seconds from making a comment about my mentality, weren't you Clove?"

"I don't need to tell everyone, Cato, when you make it painfully obvious," Clove snaps. Because it's true, and she shouldn't feel guilty for pointing it out.

"You said I wasn't a nice boy, Clove." He nips at the pale skin of her neck, a reprimand, but he's the one to say, "Ouch."

"I may have hurt your feelings," Clove replies dryly, as snarkily as she can whilst being pinned against a wall, "but you like the pain, remember?"

Cato blows some strands of hair from her neck. His teeth are not gentle against her throat. It contradicts the softness of his lips, the way he kisses her before sinking in his fangs. He's doing his best to drive animalistic sounds from her mouth- the closest thing to consent he'll ever take- but his best only coaxes a shiver down her spine. Then his tongue is sliding up her skin, grazing the underside of the jaw, tasting the uncharted territory of fierce, untamed Clove.

He stops achingly short of her lips; she can still feel him grinning.

"Do you take it back?" he asks. She thinks if she says yes, he'll close the burning millimetres between their mouths and kiss her.

"I meant it, Cato. You're the definition of _not nice_." She can smirk, too.

Her sneer disappears when Cato twists her around, abruptly bringing them face-to-face. His thighs press her knees to the wall. Breathing is suddenly an ability Clove prizes, because now she's finding it so difficult to get air.

Clove can't see his eyes. They're the brightest blue she's ever seen in her life, and they're hidden beneath her chin. Hair the colour of sun-soaked straw brushes against her cheek. His teeth continue their assault on her neck; they've latched onto her pulse. Its each and every desperate throb is accompanied with a clenching of his jaw muscles- a sporadic spatter of pain.

He thinks _she's_ distracted, but he's the one losing concentration. Cato's crotch jabs into hers.

Cato's been making all sorts of moves on her- now, it's Clove's turn. She slips her leg free of his and brings her knee up in a short, stabbing motion- right into the place she knows will hurt him the most. Just as planned, he falls away, and proves real life is even more creative than her imagination by falling to the floor. His large, calloused hands are clutching his groin, but it's too late to stop what she's already done. It's comical, really.

Clove's feet hit the floor; she's already turning away. "Like that, did you?" she asks sweetly. His answer is a wheeze. Clove doesn't have the right shoes for an appropriately loud exit, but she tries her best anyway. The result is a series of loud slaps as her trainers meet the linoleum floor. It masks the sounds from the boy behind her. She reaches the elevator, thinking training would only be pointless now.

She punches the button, a little aggressive, but it's only plastic, after all. The lift arrives with a pleasant trill. Her district partner recovers quicker than she expects; with an uncanny swiftness she's come to associate with him, Cato pushes into the elevator, ignoring the doors and their hasty backtrack to allow room for his entrance. An indecipherable look is in his cerulean eyes.

"Rude, Clove," he admonishes. Cato advances, and although it's an elegant and spacious area, it's too small to escape him. Clove is no longer sure she wants to, because those eyes are doing harrowing things to her stomach.

When he does kiss her, finally, it's not a merge; it's a clash. His lips are a bruising force on hers, and she does her best to return the favour with equal fervour. Clove winces when their teeth click, and discovers his tongue is a snake. Older Games are fond of the legless reptiles, and she's seen them many times watching the reruns. The way it twists between her lips to writhe against her own is distinctly snake-like.

There's no distance between them now. Clove feels every contour of his body with hers, every muscle he's worked for years to build and maintain. Suddenly clear, emphasised, is the height difference between them. Cato must stoop to reach her- until that pose bores him, and he yanks her up against his chest, her legs clamped against his hips.

Announcing their arrival to their floor, the elevator dutifully beeps at them, sliding its sleek metal doors open without prompt. Cato doesn't bother to unhinge his lips from her jaw, but moves from into their apartment. Maybe it's testament to Clove's slight form that her weight doesn't seem to hinder him in the slightest. He picks a room at random. It hardly matters now.

The bed is a soft thing, a concoction of of silk and feathers. In District 2, luxury, while readily available, had never featured heavily in Clove's life. At home, her bed is older than she is, and just as thin. She barely notices that she's sat down at all, let alone the smooth, cool mattress beneath her.

Girls have a tendency to gossip. Clove decides in the span of five seconds their descriptions are lacklustre, missing the aching detail she didn't know she craved. She didn't _know_ he smelled like metal and male musk, hadn't _thought_ he'd taste so rich. Girls passed along whispers of pain and euphoria, but hadn't managed to capture in words the heat that burned through his clothes.

At her wordless request his uniform shirt is over his head, finding a sequestered spot on the floor. The boy at her fingertips is a plethora of muscle, golden skin stretched taut. His torso presses her flat against the bedspread. Littered on his chest and shoulders are a multitude of scars. If she can run her hands over all of them, in long fell sweeps, perhaps she can map them. Commit them to memory alongside her own.

Clove is quite certain of a few of them are her own artistic creations.

Cato tugs her own shirt over her stomach. His fingers are rough and ridged, and nothing about their movements could be called gentle. The rush of cold air in her shirt's absence is quelled by the warmth of his chest, brushing against her own with an electrifying friction. Leaving her mouth wide and gaping, his tongue and teeth sink lower.

There are elaborate anatomy lessons taught back in District 2. Clove knows about breasts and their functions. They're lumps of fat, essentially, with the sole purpose of feeding young children. She knows the nerves there are sensitive, and supposes carving them with a knife would hurt. Will hurt. Cato's manipulations are something different. His tongue strokes, his teeth gnaw, his hands circle and sweep with devastating slowness, and Clove finds that it's all she can do to gasp.

Then his hands are gone. His teeth are gone. He's ripped himself and her trousers, the unflattering black training attire, away in one fluid movement. And damn, he knows his loss hurts her.

Clove props herself on her elbows, dark eyes narrowed at Cato. She ignores his own gaze, and how it lingers on her heaving chest. There's his cocky trademark half-smirk, back on his pretty face, as he balls up her trousers and tosses them away. He seems no more tousled than usual; as if looking half-fucked is his perpetual natural state.

"Take it back," he demands. "Apologize." He looks startlingly confident she will...but she'd _hate_ to lie to him, and notch up his ego even further.

"Oh, Cato," she gushes, ignoring how Glimmer-like she sounds, "you're simply the worst boy I know."

She can't ignore how his face twists, how his smirk vanishes. Just like her aching breasts, he's hurt. He turns towards the door and storms out, leading Clove to the realisation that- by chance- Cato lugged her into her own room. Somewhere down the hall, another door slams shut with resounding force.

Clove laughs.

Walking past his room later that night, the primitive slaps of flesh against flesh assault her ears. She retreats to her room, but she can't hide from Cato's animal grunts, nor the fact that Glimmer seems determined to broadcast just how loudly she can moan his name. She takes a butter knife to his polished wooden door. She ponders for a while, wondering exactly what to scratch into the wood.

_The bitch isn't dead; you didn't fuck her hard enough. _ She snarls as Glimmer gives a particularly loathable squeal, and adds, _Losing your touch?_ It's almost embarrassing, how long it takes her to come up with the words, especially since Cato and his slut don't deserve the time she's wasted on them.

Stealing kitchen knives and shredding Cato's abandoned shirt with them becomes that night's outlet. They're frustratingly blunt.

The brunette returns to training the next day with a vengeance. By the end of the day, she's used all of the available knives and buried them to the hilt in the proffered plastic-and-foam scapegoats. Everyone, by now, knows well enough to leave her and her station alone. Clove doesn't feel above using knives on living targets.

The interviews roll around soon enough. Glimmer's got her simper on once more; it's all Clove can do not to roll her eyes at the pathetic display. Cato looks bored as the blonde smiles and waves, and this triggers a bit of smugness in Clove's chest. She's supposed to stand side by side with her district 'partner', but right now, she's not going to grant him with her immediate proximity. She stands as close to Marvel as she feels she can get.

The interview goes well enough. She pulls of the cute angle, but she's more sarcastic than sweet in most places. Makeup tastefully covers the bruises Cato has left behind. Her stylist hasn't said a word, but it's most likely she thinks the marks were gained in training. She's only a Capitol idiot, ultimately. Caesar is another of the idiots; benign, beguiling, the perfect and genial host.

He asks her what she'd do to win. Replying, Clove says she'll just be herself. Considering her training score of 10, Caesar asks no more questions on that front.

Late at night, it hits her. As soon as tomorrow, the people she's seen will all be dead. All but one. _It won't be Glimmer, for fucking certain, _Clove thinks. _It won't be the little girl from 11 or the lovelorn 12 boy. It may not even be me_. From a young age, she has seen Cato train every day. He's lethal with a weapon, and a menace without. Cato is strength and fury rolled into the hulking form of a very handsome boy. The Capitolites who haven't fallen for the star-crossed lovers and their impossible, implausible romance will be clamouring to sponsor him.

Clove wanders into the empty lounge, finding a spot to sit on the impeccable hearth. She's rapidly discovering, like many of the Training Center's temporary residents, that sleep is unattainable. She's excited, of course- it's the _Hunger Games_. Dread is the extra, unwanted emotion she neither wants nor expected. Cato isn't supposed to be here. He shouldn't of volunteered. He's the only one whose death might possibly hurt.

She wishes the warm, wet tracks down her cheeks were blood. It's easier to bleed than cry. She wishes the artificial flames in front of her bowed head would burn them from her skin, but at best its heat is polite, pleasant.

The footsteps behind her are too heavy to be an Avox. Should've figured he, too, would be awake. He's probably been thinking of all the methods of decapitation and disembowelment he knows, and then inventing a rudimentary few more. Clove always seems to run into Cato, even when she has no desire to move.

"Clove?"

"Who fucking else? They haven't replaced me in the span of five hours, you know." She doesn't turn to face him. Actually, she's kind of comfortable, sitting with bent knees, forehead on her forearms, hiding her leak of emotions from the world. Or the cameras, at least.

"Clove doesn't cry." Cato crouches beside her, tilting her chin towards him with absurdly gentle fingers. There's no hiding the tears now; she doesn't even know how long he's been watching her. Creep.

"Girls cry, big boy. Get used to it. You can count on hysterics tomorrow." Removing her face from his touch, she turns to face the 'fire'. Can the Capitol do _anything_ right? At least they know how to murder children. Life isn't completely boring.

"You know how to handle yourself, Clove. You have nothing to worry about tomorrow."

"Of course I don't," she snaps. Tomorrow, alliances will be intact; knives will be in abundance. For the first day of the Games, they will have a common interest- death- and they will be united by that. What does he take her for, a miner's rat from 12?

"But you're-you're still...crying."

"Charismatic Cato, fumbling with his words," she comments. "Marvelous description skills."

"Shut up," Cato mutters, lacking his typical venom. She sees him move in her peripheral vision: a subtle shift of gold and black. Then Clove is wreathed in his arms, her back curved into the other tribute's lean abdomen. His legs are braced against her own. Stiff with surprise, she forgets to push him away.

"What are you doing?" Clove growls, remembering after a moment she ought to be both disgusted and cautious. Her struggles are futile. She's tiny, and he's sculpted with muscle. Cinched above her waist, his arms refuse to move.

"Being nice." Unlikely. Clove has her suspicions that Cato's ulterior motive lies somewhere in her pants.

"Go be nice to Glimmer," she retorts. "She's been looking disgustingly needy all night." She knows that while half of the preening earlier was for the Capitol, the other half was reserved for Cato. Clove isn't sure why, considering Glimmer has gotten everything she's wanted, and, knowing Cato, probably then some.

Cato sighs against her neck. He mumbles, "You don't get it, Clove."

But she _does_ get it. She wasn't good enough for him, and his stint with blondie was. She hurt him with words, as she is so very often inclined to do, and of course Glimmer was there when he retreated. She wouldn't dare insult him.

"I don't care, Cato," she tells him, trying again to free herself. If her aim is going to be perfect tomorrow, then she needs sleep. Cuddles with Cato are not conducive to sleeping. "Let me go."

He refuses, sounding petty. "No, Clove. Can't make me." She grits her teeth at this, because she probably can't. Digging an elbow into his ribs offers no relief. She turns her head; his lips are suddenly inches from hers.

They brush against her mouth and Clove knows she can't make herself let him go. Not until tomorrow. The kiss is sweet, chaste, and she wonders if this is some kind of residual aftereffect of Glimmer. If Glimmer has stolen his fury in a midnight carnal exchange. She wants to pull away because, paranoid, she thinks she can faintly taste Glimmer on his lips. He may be cradling her, but it's with five times the strength she possesses.

She can't move, because she's crumbling against his will and his lips.

Later, she'll think back, hating how pliable she became in his touch. As if she were a shell with none of Clove's fire, drinking in the heat and taste of Cato through his mouth just to _feel_ something. As if she's already dying, already dead, and the boy holding her can kiss her back to life.

Clove didn't know Cato could kiss like this. Cato's lips like to bruise and his teeth like to bite. But he's not doing either. He's so gentle it nearly pains her. She wants more than these butterfly touches, the soft mingle of their tongues. She pushes against him, retaliates against his tenderness by capturing his lower lip with her teeth. His eyes flutter closed, those bright, blazing blue things she can barely stand to stare at for more than a few seconds.

Breaking away, his breath is hot, erratic against her ear. It's dangerously shy of panting; apparently, kissing Clove is the equivalent of running an impromptu five-mile jog. She's not actually sure what it takes to get Cato breathing so heavily. It's not quite Clove's breath she can't catch, but her heart, beating too fast beneath its thin constraints of flesh and bone.

And she knows they shouldn't, because tomorrow they're in the fucking _Hunger Games_, but they move in a tangle anyway towards her room. Mutually, they both understand that Cato's room is off-limits. It's sullied. So they collapse on her bed, even though they shouldn't, and Cato kisses her again in a way devoid of anger, the only kind of passion Clove thinks he can possess.

Clove needs more, but he's insistent on this sweet thing. Languid as his touches are, they spark fire beneath her skin. She writhes, but still, she's burning, and the flames drag her down where she feels all her _want_ and _need_ and hungry, hungry _desire._ Consumed, but not by him, not yet.

It's a one-sided fight. Clove pushes for more, for the gritty lust Cato has already displayed, and Cato simply accepts what she throws at him, swallows it deep.

Their clothes are shed. Clove doesn't care where they fall. Because they're drowning in each other, lost in their moans and sharing an inferno. The friction between them is slick with sweat, and Clove gasps out for an acceleration in their tempo. Cato kisses her words away. Theirs is a slow-burning torture, and he likes it.

"You're a masochistic monster," Clove growls; together they've found a new kind of pain. She arches against his broad chest, slams her hips into his until he breaks. They give into speed; they give into each other, until in a cataclysmic flare of euphoria, Clove realises all she's ever trained for has been for nothing.

She _is_ nothing. She doesn't stand a chance because already, Cato has killed her.


End file.
